


Giving me a second sight

by minkhollow



Series: I think I see a spark [1]
Category: Persona 3
Genre: Akihiko is just a bisexual disaster, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Multi, Shinji is a biromantic asexual disaster, Soulmates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-06
Updated: 2019-04-07
Packaged: 2019-10-23 06:48:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 14,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17678498
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minkhollow/pseuds/minkhollow
Summary: They say that the first time you touch your soulmate, you see color.  Nobody says what it means if you only get part of the spectrum.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really should be working on existing stuff instead of starting a new thing, but here we are, because sometimes you want to read a thing and it doesn't exist. XD
> 
> It'll become clearer when I get to other characters beyond the main three, and even as I plumb the depths of their dynamic, but 'soulmates' here need not be romantic by default; it's just someone(s) who Really Gets You. Also, this will definitely _not_ be a retelling of canon with the gimmick pasted on.

Aki punches him – Shinji really can’t understand why, he just wanted to see Miki smile for a change, he thought they agreed about that being a good thing – and the world flares to life. Sort of, anyway.

It’s not until the second blow he was bracing himself for doesn’t come that he realises the same thing must’ve happened to Aki. Sure enough, when Shinji cracks open an eye again, Aki’s let his hand drop and is blinking furiously. It can’t be just because he started crying the second he figured out where the stupid doll came from, considering he was just fine beating the crap out of Shinji before he actually landed a punch.

“We’re taking the doll back to the store,” Aki says, trying to sound like he’s not worried. “If you want to get Miki something, buy it. We can figure out what’s happening… later.”

They don’t figure out what’s happening that day, or that month for that matter, but it doesn’t stop. Some things just look _weird_ , and there’s no real pattern to it that either of them can figure out. The grass and trees look weird. Some flowers look weird, but others don’t. The sky’s usually normal, but sunsets – and sunrises, the few times they’re up that early – look weird as _hell_ (and kind of pretty, really).

Miki thinks they’re being silly, and of course she can’t see anything weird herself, so they figure it’s just them. Shinji doesn’t see any point in asking the adults. Either they won’t know or they’ll say it’s nothing kids their age should be worried about – which is dumb, but that’s adults for you.

School gives them a place to start, when they realise their art teacher’s only giving everyone a few crayons or markers at a time. Aki’s the one to ask why; she smiles and says, “It probably won’t make sense to any of you for a long time, but the colors of the markers go well together. This way, whatever you draw doesn’t turn into a muddy mess.”

Aki nods, but his frown tells Shinji he won’t be letting this go. Sure enough, once lights-out hits at the orphanage, Aki slips over to Shinji’s bed, prods him until he sits up, and pulls out a book and a flashlight.

“What’s that?”

“I went to the school library over lunch,” Aki says. “They have books about color. If the teacher’s seeing something in our drawings that she doesn’t expect anyone else to understand, then it’s _not_ just us and we should know what it is.”

Color, it turns out, is really complex and has something to do with light that Shinji doesn’t really get. The important part is that they have names for some of this stuff now – red and yellow and green – and a mystery. The book talks about something called ‘blue,’ that apparently happens to water and the sky a lot, but the splotch just looks like regular old grey to Shinji. ‘Purple’ doesn’t look like much of anything, either.

Shinji frowns when they get to the part about mixing colors. “That doesn’t sound right. It says you get green from this ‘blue’ thing, but we already _got_ green. And none of this has said anything about why it happens all of a sudden.”

Aki shrugs. “We can always try another book.”

“You have fun with that, Aki.” Shinji doesn’t like reading much – he’s mostly bothering because the orphanage staff won’t let him help in the kitchen until he can read the recipes, but those aren’t so bad.

It’s months before Aki manages to turn up anything about _why_ color happens to people like it does, and the result is so mushy Shinji wants to not believe it on principle. Apparently, people don’t see any color at all until they touch their soulmate. Apparently, soulmates are the love of your life or some crap.

Apparently, you’re _supposed_ to get colors as an all-or-nothing package, so why are they still missing a big chunk?

***

Usually, color’s not a bad gig, even though they know they’re still missing a chunk and haven’t turned up anything that explains why. Shinji’s pretty sure their art teacher knows they’ve picked up at least some – Aki keeps turning in drawings with red and green where they should be, when they have those colors to draw with – but she never says anything to them about it, and no one else expects kids their age to’ve bumped into someone that important yet, so nobody asks.

Then they wake up in the middle of a summer night to the fire alarms blaring, and it turns out the fire started in the girls’ dorms, and Shinji wishes colors hadn’t happened to them at all. This would be bad enough without the flames blazing angry red and yellow over the only home either of them can remember.

He turns away from the building just in time to catch Aki trying to run back _toward_ it. Shinji fights back his own surge of panic – this can only mean Miki hasn’t been accounted for yet – and grabs Aki’s arm, leaning back to anchor him. If they fall down, they fall down. (And okay, maybe it’s a good thing color’s already happened, or it’d be happening now and make this whole thing so much worse.)

“Shinji!” Aki tries to shake him off. “Let go! I have to go get Miki out of there!”

“The hell do you think you can do that the firemen _can’t_ , you idiot? You’re just gonna get yourself hurt if you go back in there, and then what am I supposed to do?” It sucks, and he knows it sucks, but they can’t make the fire not be happening. They’re just kids.

Before Aki can pull out of Shinji’s grip, or any of the adults notice they’re fighting, the roof over the girls’ dorms collapses.

It’s hours before the adults take everyone who’s left somewhere else for the night (for the near future, really, since they can’t exactly go back to the orphanage until it’s repaired). Aki, still crying, crawls into Shinji’s cot as soon as he can and cries himself to sleep. Neither of them talk about it the next morning, but they do start sharing a bed more often after that. It’s not as weird as Shinji thought it would be.

There’s a hole in their lives where Miki was, one that leaves both of them pissed off and despairing in turns. The adults bring in people to help everyone talk about it, but Shinji usually finds he doesn’t have anything to say to them, and anyway they don’t understand the way Aki does. He’s pretty sure they’re both getting more out of talking to each other than anyone else.

Aki picks up boxing, partly because he’s a natural puncher but mostly because he wants to be able to stop anything like the fire from hurting him again. Shinji’s not sure how Aki expects to beat the crap out of a _fire_ , but it makes Aki feel better, and besides, he’s throwing himself into learning to cook so he can try to make it all hurt less. It sort of works and it sort of doesn’t, which might be all they can hope for. At least it’s something.

The first time Aki kisses him is on Shinji’s thirteenth birthday. It’s… well, it’s not _awful_ , but it’s sure not as life-altering as the girls at school have made it sound like. Shinji still doesn’t really get what all the fuss is about, but he thinks if he ever figures it out, it’ll be with Aki. They don’t really talk about that, either; it just means sometimes their fights turn into kissing, and most of the time they don’t.

More of their classmates are talking about color vision (wanting it more than having it, but still), and it’s starting to actually come up in lectures at school. The one that gets Shinji’s attention is in science class, when the teacher says that light and pigment have two different sets of primary colors – and light’s set is red, blue and _green_. It still doesn’t explain why they’re missing blue, but it does explain why that book Aki found in the first place was so confusing.

***

The Dark Hour gives Shinji a whole new reason to hate color vision – he could really do without the sickly green tint to everything, or the moon being that weird off-yellow – but if there’s good news, it’s that he and Aki are in it together. He’s not sure either of them could’ve really handled seeing the other one as a fucking coffin.

As it is, it’s a few nights before they’re convinced it’s not some kind of weird shared hallucination, and the tipping point doesn’t come until Aki says _the heir of the goddamn Kirijo Group_ asked him if he wants to help her get rid of the Dark Hour. Shinji would wonder more about how she even found out about it, except it’s the Kirijo Group; they have their claws in pretty much everything in Port Island, so it’s not really that weird that they’d know about the city grinding to a complete halt every night.

“She says it’ll probably be one hell of a fight,” Aki says, and Shinji sighs. Of course that’s the part that caught his attention. “They’re low on people who can actually help with direct combat, and between that and most people not even noticing it’s happening, studying what’s going on hasn’t been easy.”

“How low on people?”

“She didn’t say. I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s just her, though.”

“And how dangerous is this shit?”

Aki just grins, which does absolutely nothing for Shinji’s peace of mind – but it does help him make a decision.

“You’re gonna turn yourself into a fuckin’ chalk outline without me,” he says. “I want in too.”

Mitsuru is a puzzle. She’s all crisp manners and affected elegance, which usually puts Shinji right the hell on edge, but for some reason she doesn’t. Maybe it’s because she gets right down to business after introductions, instead of wasting time on small talk none of them care to do.

“I hadn’t expected two of you to take an interest,” she says, “but frankly, we could use all the help we can get. I assume you’d both be capable of passing Gekkoukan’s entrance exam?”

Shinji nods. Aki’s the one who actually likes studying, of the two of them, but that doesn’t mean Shinji doesn’t know shit. Most of what school teaches, as far as he can tell, is how to pass tests. It’s easier to pick stuff up when he’s actually interested in it, or doing something, than it is listening to lectures.

“Excellent.” Mitsuru smiles, faintly. “Ikutsuki-san is laying the groundwork with the school to start a club – although it would be at night, ideally, much of our activity would take place on school property. He’s also begun modifications to one of the school’s dormitories, and scholarships can be arranged for you both. All you’ll need to do is pass the exam.”

“Sounds good,” Aki says. “What’s the deal with the fight?”

“During the Dark Hour, Shadows – monsters made from fragments of human consciousness – have access to the city. For the most part, they are restricted to a certain area, and that’s what we’d like to explore more fully. However, sometimes they do escape into town, and it’s then that they pose a danger to the community. Apathy Syndrome does not have a medical cause; it has something to do with Shadows. If we can push back against them, we may be able to stop Apathy Syndrome in its tracks, and hopefully eliminate the Dark Hour, in time.”

“How do you push back?”

Instead of answering out loud, Mitsuru slides a briefcase across the courtyard table. Aki opens it, and frowns. “What, you shoot them?”

“Not the Shadows,” Mitsuru says.

Shinji frowns, looking from Mitsuru to the briefcase – more specifically, the _guns sitting in the briefcase_ – and back. “You gotta be kidding me.”

“They’re not real guns. Admittedly, I’m not sure why our research team decided this was the best design, but… the fact that you’ve both retained consciousness during the Dark Hour is only the first step. To fight Shadows effectively, you need to be able to summon a Persona – essentially, you’re weaponizing your soul. Evokers are simply a tool to help with that.”

“What, by shooting yourself?” Clearly these things were designed by sick fucks, but Shinji doesn’t say that out loud. If he ruins this chance at sanctioned late-night fighting, Aki might actually kill him.

(Besides, it’s not like he can say the thought didn’t cross either of their minds, after the fire.)

Mitsuru sighs. “Yes and no. It does require a great deal of trust in yourself to successfully summon a Persona, but I can assure you the process is far from fatal. I’ve been doing this since I was ten.”

Yep. Mitsuru’s family’s company is staffed by sick fucks.

“We can’t lose anything by trying, right?” Aki says. “Come on, Shinji, what’s the worst that could happen, nothing? We’ll be fine either way, and if it works, we get a chance to help people.” He’s practically daring Shinji to go along with it, damn him, and the worst part is it’s working. They’ve known each other too long for it not to work.

It’s not really a surprise that their Personas are twins – literal twins, it turns out, when Aki gets curious about the names and digs up some Western mythology books in the library. Shinji just hopes Castor’s story isn’t one that’s going to come true.

***

The story of the Dark Hour, as Mitsuru knows it, is this: Her grandfather lost himself to researching Shadows’ potential uses. That research involved a good deal of construction on Port Island, most notably Gekkoukan’s new building. It ended in the explosion that created the Dark Hour, which transforms the school into a fuck-off-huge tower full of Shadows, for some reason (how there’s no sign of this having happened when the Dark Hour’s over for the night, Shinji has no idea). There used to be a robotics research program, but no units are active. Mitsuru volunteered to see if she could summon a Persona to take some of the strain off her father, who’s been beating himself up for his father being an asshole.

It’s kind of stupid that they have to find this out from her, but Mitsuru says she doesn’t want to bother her father if she doesn’t have to – taking on way more shit than they have to must run in her family – and Ikutsuki, when he finally turns up to congratulate Shinji and Aki for passing the entrance exam, doesn’t explain a damn thing, except for where to find the dorm.

Shinji doesn’t like Ikutsuki much, but he’s never cared for authority figures. Maybe it’s the stupid puns.

The orphanage gives Shinji a knife set as a middle school graduation present, and Aki a fancy punching bag. There are things there he’ll miss, sure, but he can’t say he’s not glad to get the fuck away from the place where Miki died. They have rooms to themselves for the first time either of them can remember, mostly so Aki actually has room for all his training crap; they still end up sharing a bed some nights.

Mitsuru takes one look at the knife set and says she’ll leave outfitting the dorm’s kitchen to him, and that’s when Shinji learns Mitsuru’s idea of an appropriate budget is fucking ridiculous. He doesn’t even need half of what she offers to make sure they get a good range of useful stuff. Mitsuru also has a goddamn motorcycle, and no clue what to do in the beef bowl shop, when they drag her there to celebrate the last day of middle school. It’s kind of adorable. There are so many layers to her that she’s almost impossible to figure out.

By the end of their first week of high school, Shinji’s decided the teachers are largely worthless. The math teacher gets shit wrong more often than not, the history teacher’s completely obsessed with the Sengoku era for some damn reason, and Ekoda’s a complete dick who spends more time insulting his students for not upholding ancient ideals than he does teaching his subject. If not for the club, and keeping an eye on Aki, he’d wonder why he bothered taking the stupid exam at all.

Tartarus is goddamn weird, and it’s obvious after a couple attempts that they don’t have the manpower to do much. Because it collapses and reforms every night (again, how does this not fuck up the actual school), they need Mitsuru to stay in the lobby and try to scan the floors for activity and stairs, and there’s only so much Shinji and Aki can do on their own. To top it all off, there’s apparently something nasty all of five floors up, strong enough that Mitsuru can tell it’ll give them a lot of trouble. After that, they occasionally poke into the tower, but mostly stick to taking care of any Shadows that break out into town.

Aki settles into the whole Persona thing like he was born to it. Shinji… doesn’t, so much. He can summon Castor just fine, but half the time he feels like he’s on the brink of something going horribly wrong, and he’s not sure what to do about it. He ends up thinking about it a lot when he starts skipping Ekoda’s class (Aki talked him into sticking it out through midterms, but it never got any better). The school roof has a good view for brooding, over the bay and clear to Iwatodai proper.

The access door opens, but Shinji doesn’t pay it any mind until he realises _Mitsuru_ is sitting down next to him, not Aki, like he would’ve expected. On the bright side, classes must be over, or she wouldn’t be up here; sometimes he can talk Aki into joining him, but Mitsuru feels like she has to at least put in an appearance.

“Sanada thought you’d be up here,” she says.

“Good for him. Why didn’t he come himself?”

“He has boxing club today, but he said something’s been bothering you lately. And, well, I may be fairly new to this level of social interaction, but I do care about you both beyond the bounds of our… shared extracurricular activity. I suppose I was hoping you’d be willing to talk about it.”

Shinji sighs. A quick glance around the roof confirms there’s no one else there, and she’s just being paranoid about her phrasing for some reason. He almost doesn’t want to talk about it, but really, Mitsuru’s more likely to get it than Aki, so it can’t hurt to try. Worst case, he doesn’t get any answers.

“How long did it take you to get used to your Persona? Like… really used to it. Comfortable shooting yourself in the head on a nightly basis and confident she wasn’t gonna get away from you.”

“Ah.” Mitsuru doesn’t answer past that for a while, staring out at the ocean. “It wasn’t anything like a nightly basis, given my age at the time. Father was upset enough that I volunteered to put myself at risk like that. But I did need a few months to fully adjust to the idea.”

“So it’s not just me.” A knot in Shinji’s chest undoes itself just as he notices it’s there. “We don’t _have_ a few months, though, not when practically everything we can do is out in town. If I don’t figure this out soon, someone’s gonna get hurt.”

“The fact that you’re worried about the potential damage is a promising sign for your eventual control. Ultimately, control over your Persona comes down to faith in yourself. You’ll have to grow into that on your own time, but what worked for me until I had that confidence was knowing my father was willing to trust me with his life. We trust you to protect us. If you didn’t want to help, you wouldn’t have followed Sanada into this.”

She definitely has a point there. It’s still hard for Shinji to see, even as it explains why Aki’s not having any trouble – this is just a new way for him to punch his problems until they stop being problems – but if they believe he’s up to this, then maybe eventually he’ll believe it too.

“I am truly sorry,” Mitsuru says. “It should have occurred to me that you might be having problems adjusting as well.”

Shinji shrugs. “Why would it? We’re not ten. For all you knew it does come easier when you’re older, and Aki’s sure as hell not havin’ any problems.”

“Still. If it could have made settling in easier for you, I should have said something.”

“You blame yourself for way too much, you know that?”

“If no one takes responsibility, how will anything ever improve?”

Before Shinji can think of anything to say to that, Mitsuru’s hand brushes his on the bench, and the world flares to life – again.

“Oh,” he says, staring out at the water and feeling really, really stupid. “So that’s what they meant by ‘blue.’”

When he finally looks over at Mitsuru, she’s got her hands pressed over her eyes. It makes sense, really – things were overwhelming enough without the sky suddenly changing color, the first time, and there’s no way she could’ve been expecting this. _He_ wasn’t expecting it. But maybe they should have, once they found out there were three starting colors and they could only account for two.

“Turn around,” he says. “It ain’t gonna go away, but it’ll be easier if you’re not staring at as much new shit.”

Mitsuru gets up, eyes still firmly shut, and feels her way around the bench until she can sit back down facing the other way. “How can you be so sure? What in the world just _happened_?”

For the first time since Shinji met her, she sounds genuinely terrified. He grabs his phone and texts Aki to get his ass up here as soon as he’s out of boxing club, then swings his legs around the bench so they can look at each other whenever Mitsuru opens her eyes again.

“Got a decade’s head start on some of this, that’s all. You’re gonna be just fine.”


	2. Chapter 2

Mitsuru’s opened her eyes again by the time Aki gets to the roof, even if she’s looking at the ground and nowhere else. Half the school wouldn’t know what to think of this; they’re just firsties, but everyone’s still terrified of her by reputation.

“Shinji?” Aki’s hair is still dripping, most likely from a post-club shower, and he looks worried as hell. “Is everything all right? What happened?”

“Keep your pants on, Aki, nobody’s dead or anything. Solved a big mystery, that’s all.”

“What mystery?”

Shinji can’t help a smirk. “Blue.”

The look on Aki’s face as he glances between Shinji and Mitsuru, jaw dropping, is priceless. “That… that explains a lot, really. You’d think one of those stupid books would’ve mentioned the possibility.”

“Indeed you would,” Mitsuru says. She’s still looking at the ground, but she sounds more like her usual self. “We should head home. This is a complex situation, and I’d prefer not to discuss it where just anyone can hear.”

“So you wanna go to a dorm bristling with security cameras?” The first thing Shinji did when he was unpacking his stuff was cover the one in the corner of his bedroom. Anyone who wants to spy on him that badly can go fuck themselves.

“I do know how to turn them off. We’ll have complete privacy for the night.” Mitsuru finally looks up, meeting Aki’s eyes. “If you don’t mind, I’d rather wait to… complete the circuit, so to speak, until we’re back at the dorm.”

Aki nods. “I’ve waited this long. What’s another hour?”

They get downstairs from the roof, on the train, and back to the dorm without anyone looking at them funny, so they must look more or less normal. That’s something, at least; Mitsuru doesn’t need the embarrassment of tripping over herself, not when she’s a minor celebrity. When they get to the dorm, she heads up to the command room, disables the cameras, and leads them downstairs to her bedroom, which is a fucking suite all by itself because rich people are ridiculous.

“I confess I’m not sure where to start,” she says, sitting down in an uncomfortable-looking armchair and waving them toward an equally uncomfortable-looking sofa. “The beginning will serve us as well as anything. Ara— Shinjiro said you’ve been dealing with this in part for some time?”

“We were five,” Shinji says, trying to ignore how absurdly happy Mitsuru using his given name makes him. “Aki punched me.”

Mitsuru blinks, then shakes her head, smiling. “Somehow, that’s entirely characteristic of you two. I never expected to find myself in this situation at all, and like yourselves, my reading on the subject never indicated the possibility of a group of three. That does lead to another question, though. Do you consider your attachment to be romantic in nature?”

“…I dunno. Do we?”

Aki shrugs. “I mean, it isn’t _not_? You’re usually not interested, so I haven’t pushed, but you don’t exactly stop me kissing you either.”

This is a really weird conversation to have with someone else in the room, even if she does seem to understand them pretty well. “Ain’t like it’s that big a deal. If it’s ever gonna make sense to me, it’ll have to be with someone I trust.” Shinji can’t bring himself to say that the list of people he trusts might have just grown, for the first time since they were kids. Mitsuru’s probably figured that out by now anyway.

“I see.” Mitsuru’s quiet for a few moments. “I’m going to have to talk to my father about this. He’s been considering arranging a marriage for me, to ballast the Kirijo Group’s prospects, but he’s always said that if I found someone before an arrangement was set, he’d take that into consideration. This is… decidedly more than either of us bargained for, and there is of course the possibility that this won’t affect such an arrangement, but I’d like him to have all the information.”

“You were just going to let your dad marry you off to someone?” Aki says.

“My parents’ marriage was both political in nature and ultimately successful, until my mother died. It isn’t without precedent, and Father has always said he won’t finalise any such deal without my consent. Besides, as I said, I never expected to find _one_ soulmate, let alone two, and that changes the calculus somewhat.”

“If you say so. It just doesn’t seem fair to you.”

“I think it’s a rich people thing, Aki.” It doesn’t sound all that fair to Shinji, either, but at least Mitsuru’s dad isn’t being a complete dick about it. “How do we handle this at school?”

“We haven’t talked about it so far.”

“And that may last for a while,” Mitsuru says, “but sooner or later, someone’s bound to ask. I agree that it wouldn’t hurt to have a plan in place, but on the other hand, I don’t think we’re equipped to make one yet. We need more than a few hours to settle into this new reality.”

She’s not wrong, and Shinji’s really not sure what answer he was hoping for anyway. Aki’s the better public face, and since nobody talks about the _chance_ of a group of three, people would expect a couple… but that feels like lying. It can’t hurt if they come back to it later.

“What else filled in right away, for you?” Aki says. “We know what we’ve been missing this whole time, but not… what we gave to each other, I guess.” It’s a good question – one Shinji hasn’t thought about in a few years himself – and he finds himself watching Mitsuru’s face as she stares across the room, probably trying to piece this afternoon back together.

“The leaves,” she finally says. “On the flowers in the rooftop planters. Not the flowers themselves, though.”

The flowers are some giant red daisy variant. Shinji’s definitely stared at them enough over the last month to know that much.

“Huh.” Aki sounds like he wasn’t expecting that, for some reason. “Well, we’re home now, and this is as controlled of circumstances as we’re going to get. Do you want to finish this off now?”

“We might as well, Akihiko.”

Mitsuru holds out a hand, with a faint smile, and Aki gets up and takes it. From the outside, it doesn’t look like much of anything’s happening at all. Then Mitsuru blinks a couple times, and frowns, and says, “That couch is a truly atrocious color, isn’t it?”

Shinji cracks up.

He’s not surprised when Aki comes into his room that night and climbs into his bed without another word. Aki seems to know when Shinji’s up for company and when it’s a bother – when he wants to be kissed and when he doesn’t – and that’s probably part of why they never put it into words before they had to. (He wonders if Mitsuru will ever be able to read him that well.)

“I still don’t get why nothing mentioned there could be three people,” Aki says.

“Probably because they’d have to admit the world is complicated.” Most people like their neat boxes, Shinji’s noticed, and they barely want to acknowledge relationships that can’t result in kids as it is. “You sent her up to talk to me on purpose, didn’t you?”

“Not because of this, but I did, yeah. We don’t talk about problems. Hell, we barely talk about the good stuff. The fact that we talked about Miki at all…” Aki sighs. “Whatever it was, you needed to get it off your chest, and I thought you might actually tell her. I hope it helped.”

“Dunno for sure yet, but… I think it did.”

And if Mitsuru’s advice wasn’t enough – if the knowledge that he’s not the only one to struggle with controlling his Persona didn’t already comfort him a lot – now Shinji has two reasons to power through his uncertainty and make this work. They trust him with their lives; they believe he can handle it. He’s not about to let them down.

***

Mitsuru’s dad is nothing like Shinji expected. He’s obviously where Mitsuru’s stoic side comes from, but he still takes the time to thank Shinji and Aki for giving her something he never had himself. This is not a guy looking to doom his daughter to an unhappy marriage, that much is for sure.

He also says that if they have any questions about the Dark Hour, they’re not only welcome but _encouraged_ to ask him, and he’ll answer to the best of his ability. If Aki doesn’t start writing a list in his head on the spot, Shinji will be very surprised. It’s weird, after Ikutsuki’s general uselessness as a source of information, but it’s also a clear sign that Mitsuru’s dad is actually trying to do this right. For the first time, Shinji thinks he’s met an adult who actually deserves the respect they all demand just for being older.

Between then and spring term final exams, they make several trips into Tartarus. Shinji knows they’re for his benefit, even though Mitsuru never says so directly, but it’s not like they can actually make any progress up the stupid tower. Poking around the same couple floors will only do so much – Aki’s starting to complain about the lack of a challenge – but every time they go, Shinji feels less and less like Castor’s going to get away from him.

The night after exams end, they head into Tartarus to blow off some steam, only to find a Shadow on its way into the lobby. Shinji summons Castor and obliterates it without a second thought, and Aki and Mitsuru both _grin_ at him, and then he knows he’s gonna be fine, going forward.

On the way out of school on the last day of the term, Shinji says, “We got a project for the summer.”

“Your summer homework, one hopes,” Mitsuru says.

“Yeah, yeah, that too, but it ain’t gonna take all month. We’re gonna show you what normal people do with their lives.”

“Shinjiro, that’s hardly necessary.”

“It kind of is,” Aki says. “You’re prepared for formal dinners, but not actually interacting with our peers. I know student council’s helping some with that, but enough of them take it for granted that you’ll be running the show our senior year that it’s not really the same. Come on, we’re getting some ramen.”

Mitsuru asks them about proper ramen-eating etiquette, of all things, which really only proves their point. Then she asks the shop owner about his ‘bouillon,’ and Shinji wonders how she can be so elegant and clueless and terrifying and adorable all at once.

Somehow, in a matter of months, she’s become just as important to him as Aki is. Shinji’s really not sure how that happened, or that he’s complaining. Now if he could just figure out how to define what it is he wants, he’d be set.

Kissing Aki is all right. He thinks kissing Mitsuru would be all right, too. More than that… there are guys at school who talk like their worlds revolve around getting off, and Shinji doesn’t really understand why. It doesn’t sound worth the bother if you’re not with someone you trust. If Aki or Mitsuru asked, he’s not sure he’d say no, but he’s not sure he’d say yes, either. All he knows for sure is he doesn’t plan on letting either of them go any time soon.

“I could probably recreate Hagakure’s broth, you know,” he says, on the way home. He’s eaten there enough over the years that he thinks he knows what the owner’s spice profile of choice is, but saying so in the shop would’ve been rude.

“Really?” Mitsuru says, at the same time as Aki splutters.

“Shinji! Come on, you’ve never cooked for me before! Why are you offering for her all of a sudden?”

Shinji rolls his eyes. “I have _too_ cooked for you, dumbass. What d’you think I was doing in the orphanage kitchen all the damn time? You just don’t know what exactly I cooked. Besides, your idea of a good meal is a protein shake.”

“That’s not the same thing! And there’s nothing wrong with a good protein shake after a workout.”

“There’s plenty wrong with it when you don’t _eat dinner_ afterward.”

Mitsuru laughs and hooks an arm through each of their elbows, and Shinji could swear his heart skips a beat.

***

Once every few days, they get another new experience under Mitsuru’s belt. She’s the undisputed master of the arcade’s trivia game, but hates the horror one; she has as little idea what to do with a cheeseburger as she did with a bowl of ramen; she over-analyzes the cheesy romantic comedy that was somehow the only movie on seven screens that looked even half worth watching.

All three of them absolutely suck at karaoke.

Shinji’s birthday starts with a knock on his door – two or three of them, more likely, since he was out cold. Even then he doesn’t really wake up until Mitsuru calls for him through the door. “Shinjiro?”

“God, what?” He runs a hand through his hair to hopefully get rid of his bedhead, then opens the door. “It’s too early for anything useful.”

Mitsuru stares at his chest for a moment – oh, right, he did fall asleep without a shirt on last night – before recovering her composure. “It’s nearly noon, and more to the point, Akihiko tells me it’s your birthday. I was wondering if you’d like to go for a ride.”

“Hell yeah I would,” Shinji says, suddenly feeling more awake. “Won’t your bike only fit two of us, though?”

“Akihiko said he’s had you to himself for the last seven, so I should have this one. He may or may not be planning something for when we get back, I’m not certain. In any case, I thought we could have lunch and then head out of town for a while.”

Once Shinji’s dressed, they do exactly that. Misturu’s got enough restaurant experience under her belt and enough familiarity with the stuff on Wakatsu’s menu that they get through lunch without any trouble, and then they’re off, away from Port Island and into the countryside. There’s apparently another beach close by, but Shinji rejected that in favor of the mountains. If he wants to see the ocean, he can do that every day.

Besides, heading inland makes for a longer trip, and he kinda likes sitting behind Mitsuru. She’s braided her hair for the ride, which is a good look on her, and being this close is… nice.

They stop at a park, several kilometers from the nearest (very small) town, and just sit on a bench and talk for most of the afternoon. Shinji has a feeling it’s as relaxing for Mitsuru as it is for him. Even with everything else they’ve been doing this summer, she doesn’t seem to ever unwind very much; here, she’s let her guard down enough that she’s actually smiling. He’s not sure he could ask for a better present.

Toward the end of the afternoon, Mitsuru leans over and kisses him. Shinji was right; it’s not bad at all. Still, when she pulls back, he can’t help but laugh. “Man, what is it about my birthday that makes people want to kiss me?”

“Perhaps we just want to help you mark a milestone.” Mitsuru pauses, and her smile falters for the first time in hours. “It wasn’t too much, was it?”

“Nah, woulda stopped you if it was. I’m still not sure about much else, though, so… if you and Aki ever wanna do more, don’t wait up for me.”

“I’ll take that under advisement, but I’m not sure it’s crossed Akihiko’s mind.”

Shinji snorts. “Yeah, you’re probably gonna have to tell him what you want. I only don’t because I got a decade’s head start on you.” Aki hasn’t taken the time to learn _how_ to read someone else since Miki died, now that he thinks about it. Not that he really has either, until now. “You know, you should do this for his birthday, too.”

“Oh? When is it?”

“Next month. It’s a Saturday this year.” She’d _have_ to skip school to take Aki out on the day, and Shinji’s half wondering if she has the balls to do it. “Take him out for a ride and get back to the dorm by dinner. That oughta shut him up about ‘never having had my cooking.’”

Mitsuru laughs – really laughs, not a refined chuckle or some shit. Shinji decides on the spot he’s going to make that happen more often.

“I suppose it would, at that. We should head back before it gets dark.”

***

Mitsuru suggests the summer festival as an outing, while they’re waiting for their takoyaki to cool down enough to eat it. Aki freezes, and several things hit Shinji at once.

They haven’t bothered going to the summer festival since Miki died, all of three days after the last one they went to. He’s not sure if Aki could handle it. Hell, he’s not sure either of them have even told Mitsuru about the fire – Shinji knows he hasn’t brought it up, anyway, and judging by the look on her face Aki hasn’t either.

“Was it a bad idea? I realise it would be somewhat more public than some of our other outings, but—”

“No! No, no, that’s not the problem,” Aki says, shaking his head like it’ll shake off his stupor. “And it _is_ good that you’re coming up with ideas for these things instead of leaving it all to us. We just… haven’t gone to the festival in a while.”

“Not since his sister died,” Shinji adds. They can save the rest of the story for later – he’s planning to turn Aki’s favor that got them into this full-color mess around and send Mitsuru to talk to him about it tonight – but she deserves at least that much for now. “Would’ve been too weird at first, and then we just didn’t think about going.”

“I see.” Mitsuru frowns. “Well, I stand by the suggestion. If it ends up not being viable, that’s all right; we can come up with something else to do that night, I’m sure. For now, we can keep it in mind as a possibility.”

Aki climbs into Shinji’s bed that night, well over an hour after he told Mitsuru to go get the full story out of him. He’s been crying, which isn’t a surprise; the surprise is that he’s not _still_ crying.

“Thanks,” he says, and Shinji just nods and holds Aki until they both fall asleep.

They do end up going to the festival, at Aki’s insistence, and it’s not as bad as either of them were afraid of – it hurts a little, seeing Miki’s favorite games and not being able to get her a funny mask, but that was probably going to happen no matter what. Neither of them can face staying for the fireworks. Mitsuru assures them there’s always next year and takes them home.

The rest of the break passes in a blur of summer homework and random everyday shit, ending in the three of them sneaking into Escapade two nights before fall term starts. (It’s loud and dark and reeks of alcohol, and there’s some drunk guy shouting from the VIP room; they don’t stay more than an hour, and none of them get the appeal afterward.) School’s as pointless as ever, with the added pointlessness of planning for the culture festival thrown in.

The night before Aki’s birthday, Mitsuru asks Shinji if he can turn off Aki’s alarm for the morning without him noticing. Shinji grins and agrees, and starts planning for the next day. He’s going to need to hit a grocery store right after school, and get started on prep work as soon as he gets home, since it’ll be just him, but that’s more than fine. He’s just glad Mitsuru is actually following through on his half-dare to skip school herself.

By the time they get home from wherever it is they went, Shinji’s got a full pancake breakfast set up on the dining room table, complete with syrup and fruit toppings, hashed potatoes, four different preparations of eggs, and even some bacon. Aki tears up as soon as he sees it, the sentimental idiot. If he’d ever _asked_ , Shinji would’ve told him what he’d cooked back at the orphanage, but this will at least settle it once and for all.

All three of them end up in Mitsuru’s bed that night (the only one big enough for all of them to get comfortable like that), Aki sandwiched between Shinji and Mitsuru. It’s pretty nice.

***

October fourth is a fucking miserable day, with half-assed fog that doesn’t lift until lunch and a chilly drizzle lingering after that. Shinji considers asking Mitsuru to put off their planned Tartarus run until the next day, but she _does_ have a point that it’s been a while, and just because they can’t do much with the tower itself doesn’t mean they should slack off entirely. He’s just glad they already took the time to make sure he’s not having trouble controlling his Persona anymore.

If not for that, it would feel like the kind of day where something is bound to go off the rails. As it is, they don’t even make it all the way to Tartarus proper before Mitsuru picks up on a Shadow, tearing off in the direction of Paulownia Mall. Anything that might get to civilians takes precedence over a tower they can’t even climb properly, so they take off after it, cornering it in a dead-end alley next to the karaoke box. It’s a long fight, and they’re all completely worn out by the time the Shadow’s dealt with, but nobody’s hurt and there’s no property damage that’ll be awkward to explain in the morning. They all kind of collapse on one of the benches by the fountain, waiting for the Dark Hour to end so they can take the last train home.

The next morning, Shinji comes downstairs to find Mitsuru staring at the lounge’s TV, deathly pale, with one hand to her mouth. That can’t possibly mean anything good, but Shinji comes around to see what’s on the news anyway.

“—unexplained explosion near Port Island Station last night,” a reporter says, while the news shows footage of a house that almost definitely was _not_ wrecked by an explosion, as it’s the only one with any signs of damage. “The homeowner, Amada Rei, age 32, was killed instantly; her eight-year-old son has been taken to Tatsumi Memorial Hospital for…”

Shinji doesn’t really hear the rest. Shit. They must’ve missed a Shadow last night, while they were chasing the one in the mall. _Shit_.

“How did I miss that?” Mitsuru says, so quiet Shinji barely catches it. “Why didn’t my scans pick that up? We could have done something, if we were there.”

“First off, you keep complaining that you can’t scan for shit without your bike, and even with it you crap out after a while. For all we know, it _wasn’t_ there when you scanned the first time, and even if you had found it after the fight in the mall, we wouldn’t’ve been in any shape to chase it anyway.”

“Still. Our only job right now is to keep the public safe, and—”

“And we did,” Shinji says. “There’s only three of us. It sucks, but we can’t stop everything. What we _can_ do is figure out how we can help that kid. No eight-year-old deserves to have their life upended like that.”

He’d know – all three of them would.

Mitsuru draws a shaky breath, and sighs. “You’re right. I’ll have my father look into what arrangements are being made for Amada’s care, and where we might be able to contribute.”

“You guys should tell him as much of the truth as you can.”

“Who are we telling what now?” Aki says as he comes downstairs. When they catch him up, he looks as pissed off and ready to cry as Mitsuru does, but Shinji’s not surprised – this is exactly the kind of thing Aki wanted to punch before it could ever happen again.

“Shinji’s right. The fire… was just a fire. Based on the timeline you gave us, it was before the Dark Hour existed, so it can’t have been anything more than that, but if it was, I’d want to know. If he’s in a position to understand, and we all know it’s possible he is, then it’ll help him deal with this.”

“He _is_ at our hospital,” Mitsuru says. “And I’m sure they’ll want to keep him overnight for observation regardless, in the event of a concussion. If he retains consciousness during the Dark Hour, I’ll suggest a partial briefing for him.”

They’re all silent on the way to school, even as everyone else on the monorail is gossiping about the ‘explosion.’ Shinji’s just glad it was a freak accident, and nothing worse. Still, he hopes they can make it up to the kid somehow.


	3. Chapter 3

Mitsuru’s phone rings before her alarm goes off. She has to extract herself from under Shinjiro’s arm to get to it, and almost hangs up on principle before she sees it’s her father calling; it’s likely important enough to talk to him, in that case. “Hello?”

“Good morning, Mitsuru. I thought you’d like to know that we just received confirmation that Amada-kun retained consciousness last night.”

Mitsuru sighs. She’d half expected as much, but it’s still unnerving to think his life has been so thoroughly shattered already. “I see. Have you found out anything about his living arrangements going forward?”

“Some relatives are willing to sponsor his education, but let him remain in the Port Island area, to prevent uprooting his life any more than necessary. That would also be convenient should he ever do more than remain awake during the Dark Hour.”

“I’ll go and talk to him after school. He deserves to understand the nature of the accident, and if he shows an interest in our work, it’s probably best if someone else who started young explains the potential pitfalls.” She spent a year and a half arguing for the _chance_ to attempt calling a Persona, and was granted the opportunity at the earliest time the remaining researchers deemed it safe. If Amada wants to help, he’s still too young, and Mitsuru understands that sting better than anyone.

“Understood. Will you be taking one of the others with you?”

“I’ll have to see if they want to come along. Akihiko might, but I’m not sure about Shinjiro.” Mitsuru hesitates for a moment, then decides this is the best opening she’s likely to get for a while, and adds, “On a related note… I’m quickly coming to realise I couldn’t bear a political arrangement. It would be a supremely unfair thing to ask of anyone involved.”

“You’ll have to uphold the Kirijo Group’s standing on your own. Do you think you’ll be up to the challenge?”

“I’ll find a way to make it work, Father. Besides, if two in harmony surpasses one in perfection, what might three accomplish?”

Her father laughs. “You have a point there. I’ve believed you could rise to the occasion for several years now, but that means little if you don’t have that faith in yourself. Consider any potential arrangements called off. I’ll leave you to your morning.”

“Thank you. I’ll speak with you another time.” Mitsuru hangs up, and shuts off her alarm while she’s at it; there’s no way she’s getting back to sleep now.

“You’re as bad as Aki,” Shinjiro mumbles, from the other side of the bed.

“What’s that supposed to mean? How long have you been awake, anyway?”

“Since your phone rang.” His tone makes it clear that he thinks that should have been obvious, even before he sits up and fixes her with a flat (and fond) look. “What was that harmony bullshit about?”

“It’s just the company motto, Shinjiro. I knew it would make the point.”

“Yeah, whatever. Take Aki to the hospital with you. Kid’s gonna need someone who agrees that it sucks without tellin’ him to get over it – all I got for him right now is that he can’t change it. Besides, it’ll do Aki some good to have something he can’t fix by punching it.”

Amada takes the news about as well as Mitsuru thought he might, especially when she has to tell him he’s too young to help fight back against the problem that took his mother from him. Akihiko pacifies him somewhat with the promise of physical training to help take his mind off of things, and it occurs to her that they’re the most ‘adult’ support Amada’s likely to have around for the foreseeable future, unless his relatives move to Port Island to more directly oversee his care. There’s something very wrong about that.

Still, Amada seems to have calmed down a bit by the time they have to leave, which is something. Maybe, in time, the loss of his mother won’t be so heavy a burden on him, and he’ll be able to have something like a normal childhood despite this upheaval.

They stop at the ramen shop, on Akihiko’s insistence; at least Mitsuru knows enough to avoid embarrassing herself, this time. After they’ve been served their meals, she says, “Are you sure physical training is the best option for Amada?”

Akihiko shrugs. “There are worse ways for him to distract himself from the pain, and it’s definitely better than dwelling on it all the time. Besides, I don’t think he’s going to give up before he gets a chance to actually fight some Shadows, and being in good physical shape will give him a head start that he’s going to need if he wants to keep up with us.”

“You have a point there.” It also gives them a way to keep tabs on Amada without raising his or anyone else’s suspicions, which is the main reason Mitsuru didn’t protest. “Shinjiro just said something this morning about your tendency to punch all of your problems. I’m not sure he’ll be too thrilled about you passing that coping mechanism on.”

“Yeah, well, he can deal. The kid needs a better outlet than bottling up his anger.” Akihiko sighs. “And I still don’t think it’s such a bad thing if I don’t want to hurt like I did after the fire again.”

“No, I suppose not.” None of them have made it this far unscathed; Shinjiro’s better at covering it up, but she’s seen how surprised he is to be included, that she wants him around, and she’s had multiple conversations with her father about taking too much responsibility for the sins of others on herself.

At least now, they can lean on each other.

***

As the school year progresses, Akihiko finds himself accumulating a fan club.

He doesn’t really get it. Sure, his boxing match record is spotless – mostly because he couldn’t live with himself if he did anything less than his best every time – but does that really call for a gaggle of girls hovering nearby every time he goes to lunch? It grates, especially with their tendency to squeal and gossip about him all the time.

Shinji, damn him, thinks it’s hilarious. Even Mitsuru seems more amused than not, but she at least appreciates how annoying it is to draw that kind of attention. He starts having lunch on the school roof just to get away from them. Besides, Shinji was right about Ekoda’s general uselessness as a teacher, so if it’s a classic lit day he can get an extra hour or so away from them.

“I’d probably mind it less if I knew what they wanted,” he says, one afternoon. Shinji, bundled up in the dark red peacoat Mitsuru got him for Christmas, looks at him like he’s grown a second head, then facepalms, shoulders shaking like he’s trying not to laugh.

“Fuck’s sake, Aki, even _I_ know what they want from you.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“They want to get in your pants, idiot.” Shinji sighs. “Honestly, I thought you were the one with a functional sex drive here.”

“Well, yeah, but… what does that have to do with them?” He has Mitsuru for that, even though they haven’t gone that far yet, and Shinji, if Shinji ever decides he wants to.

“Everything, in their own heads. You’re gonna have to tell them no if you want ‘em to back off.”

Contrary to what Akihiko thought, knowing what the girls want actually makes their constant fawning even more unbearable. At least with Ken, it makes sense; he’s giving the poor kid something to focus on and someone to turn to, in the absence of basically any other adult support in his life. Also, Ken’s _eight_.

Nine? He really should ask Ken when his birthday is. Anyway, it’s more acceptable for a kid to do that kind of thing, even when the kid in question is trying way too hard to be an adult. Akihiko and Mitsuru are pretty sure Ken’s trying to prove he’s mature enough to try for a Persona, but he doesn’t think it’ll work until Ken’s at least ten no matter what he does.

The worst is when a girl corners him after the last match of the school year, utterly convinced he’s her soulmate. It’s everything Akihiko can do not to laugh in her face – he’s not sure he’d believe it even if he didn’t already know.

“Come on,” she says, “just take my hand and you’ll see! Please?” She draws out the last word much longer than she needs to.

Akihiko sighs. “I can guarantee you’re really, _really_ not my soulmate. All touching you is going to do is disappoint you. If you’ll excuse me, I really need to go shower.”

He turns to go, and she reaches for him as he does, getting a hand on his shoulder in the process. He doesn’t need to look back at her to know how hurt she must look, but there’s nothing he can do about that. Maybe it’s better she had this particular bubble burst before she could build any more steam under it.

***

Shinji doesn’t exactly seek out the shady parts of town, but he doesn’t go out of his way to avoid them either. He’s not afraid of the punks, not after a solid decade of sparring with Aki on the regular and especially not after getting tangled up with the Dark Hour. They talk big, but they can’t actually back any of it up.

The back alleys are also a good source of information on Apathy Syndrome, and that’s something they desperately need. It ebbs and flows every month in a way they haven’t quite pinned down yet; sometimes people go missing for days before they turn up basically zombified, and sometimes they’re just fine one day and catatonic the next. It’s driving Mitsuru crazy. Shinji’s starting to think what they really need is to make progress in Tartarus, but they still don’t have enough people for that, so he’s doing what he can now.

It doesn’t take him long to figure out he’s not the only one milking the punks for information without them noticing. The other regular who never seems to get involved in their discussions is a girl, maybe his age or maybe younger, who’s always drawing and never seems to smear her array of oil pastels on her pristine white loli-Goth getup. It’s her hair that really catches Shinji’s attention, though; it’s red, too vibrant to be natural in Japan (or much of anywhere else in the world, for that matter). He figures she’s unlikely to have dyed her hair that bright if she can’t see it, but the back alley’s not the place to ask.

He catches her alone during his second Golden Week of high school – well, as alone as they can be in the middle of Port Island Station. She’s drawing again, and he can’t resist asking the question that’s been on his mind since he first saw her.

“How do you not smear that shit all over your clothes, anyway?”

She ignores him for so long that Shinji’s not sure she heard him at all, but he doesn’t repeat the question – if she doesn’t want to answer someone interrupting her, that’s her right. But finally, she says, “Handkerchiefs and years of practice.”

“Okay, fair. I’m just surprised you haven’t turned yourself into a fuckin’ rainbow yet.”

She finally looks up from her sketchbook, studying Shinji for a long few moments before she grants him a fleeting smile. That’s the end of that conversation, but slowly, they build up… he’s not sure either of them would call it a friendship. If anything, Chidori seems even slower to trust other people than Shinji is himself. Neither of them ever says why they’re fishing for information in shady places, but neither of them asks, either.

Chidori does seem to like being able to talk about colors with someone, though, and they end up doing that as the light fades and the punks filter into their evening hangouts. Shinji’s just glad he finally has full context for it now, and when he mentions that one evening, Chidori fixes him with that piercing look of hers.

“Red, green, or blue?”

Shinji blinks. “Huh?”

“Which one were you? If you only recently got the full package, there must have been three of you.”

“Oh. Uh, green, it turned out.”

“Me too.” Chidori’s fleeting smile comes back for a second. “Takaya and Jin are usually too wrapped up in each other to pay much attention to me, but no one else will ever understand what I’ve been through like they do.”

He wishes, for her sake, that she was less of a third wheel in such an important relationship. She seems to be making the best of it, though, so Shinji doesn’t press her for details. For now, it’s enough to know that he and Aki and Mitsuru aren’t the only ones let down by nobody talking about the chance of a group of three soulmates.

***

They find out the news had Ken’s age wrong a week before his birthday – his _tenth_ birthday, as Aki reports when he gets home. All three of them know they’re potentially going to have an epic fight on their hands.

Mitsuru sighs. “I thought we’d have at least another year. And I can’t even tell him he’s too young, in good conscience, once he reaches that milestone.”

“He _is_ too young,” Shinji says. “We all are. The last thing I wanna do is drag a ten-year-old into Tartarus, but if he’s that convinced he can help I don’t think we can stop him trying.”

“And if we don’t assist him, he might try to find a way on his own, and hurt himself or someone else in the process. You’ve interacted with Amada the most, Akihiko. What do you think – is he capable of making the attempt?”

Aki’s quiet for a long few moments. “I think if we don’t let him try, he’s going to hold a grudge like no other. He’s still pretty angry about losing his mother, and he’d probably see it as us not letting him avenge her. I don’t know if it’ll work, and I doubt he’ll have a _stable_ Persona for some time if it does, but it’s better if we let him try and he fails than if we don’t give him the chance at all.”

And so, the weekend after Ken’s birthday, they drag a ten-year-old into Tartarus. At least Shinji convinced Mitsuru to leave Ikutsuki out of this for the time being; whatever ends up happening, Ken is _definitely_ too young to be a regular member of the group, and two and a half people wouldn’t be enough to get much of anywhere in the tower anyway.

Ken is way too calm about the prospect of shooting himself in the head to get the job done, especially for a kid his age. If Shinji wasn’t already convinced suicidal tendencies were required to use an Evoker, he would be now. For a couple seconds after Ken fires, nothing happens, and then a figure Shinji can only describe as a mess of gears wielding a club appears, for a split second, before fading out again.

Ken calls it Orion.

He also immediately starts arguing for his chance to fight some Shadows, which would look slightly less ridiculous if he wasn’t leaning on a spear half again as tall as he is. Ken barely, grudgingly accepts a compromise of joining them every other weekend to practice, and that’s mostly after Aki points out they’re barely doing more than that as it is – and after Shinji asks if Ken wants to risk hurting someone by rushing into things before he’s ready.

He’d feel worse about that, but someone’s gotta slow the kid down long enough to gain full control over that thing. What good’s he going to do if he can’t even summon it long enough to fire off a spell?

They set Ken up in a spare room in the dorm for the night, and then the three of them head for Mitsuru’s room, not quite dead on their feet but close enough.

“I should tell my father,” Mitsuru says, half into her pillow. “Even if Amada’s not joining the group, as such… if something were to happen, he needs to know.”

“Yeah, probably.” Shinji’s still not sure what difference it would make, but at least Mitsuru’s dad is a good guy. “Think he’d leave Ikutsuki out of it for now?”

Aki sighs, from Shinji’s other side. “What do you have against the chairman, anyway?”

“Same thing I have against anyone who claims authority and does jack shit with it. He hasn’t explained a damn thing to us in over a year, Aki. Besides, he’d probably try to push us into the tower, and we’re not ready for that yet.”

“Shinjiro’s right about that much. I’ll talk to Father about it.”

It’s not the answer Shinji was hoping for, but he’s pretty sure that answer wasn’t likely. If he can spare Ken Ikutsuki’s awful puns for a little longer, at least, then he’s done some good here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the events in this AU mean Ken's not vengeance-focused in quite the same way as canon, Nemesis no longer felt like an appropriate Persona for him, so instead we get [Orion](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orion_\(mythology\)), who hunted with Artemis and threatened to kill every beast he came across.
> 
> I'm not sure yet if his evolved purse will be any different (or, for that matter, exactly where the Strega arc's going to end up).


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW on this chapter for brief self-injury mentions in the second section.

It’s almost funny, how quickly Ken has come to hate Tartarus.

He’d jumped at the chance to avenge his mother’s death – would have jumped at it right away, if he’d been allowed – because otherwise, he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Akihiko-san at least understands how that feels; he and his friends are pretty much the only people who don’t look at Ken with only pity in their eyes. His family can’t even be bothered to be here, his teachers want him to be something other than numb and angry, and his classmates have pretty much stopped talking to him. What does he have to live for, if not something to fight back against?

Honestly, he’s still a little upset that his mother’s death is officially listed as an unexplained accident when he’s been _told_ what the explanation is. Mitsuru-san was right that people would panic if it went down as ‘monster attack,’ and he understands that, but his mother deserves the truth.

He’d thought things were going really well, when he talked them into taking him to Tartarus and he managed to summon something. But every time Ken’s been back since, it’s been a complete disaster. More than half the time, he can’t hold Orion there for more than about a second, certainly not long enough to actually land an attack on anything; those times are frustrating, but it’s the rest of the time that borderline terrifies him.

It’s like his Persona has a mind of its own. It casts offensive spells when he wants to try to heal one of the others, it charges things like a battering ram when he wants to use magic – and to make matters worse, it’s as likely to charge his allies or the wall as it is the Shadows. He’s half certain he’d be better off just using his spear, if he didn’t end up so frustrated he just trips on the blunt end or whacks himself in the shins.

Just once he’d like to go back to the older students’ dorm when the Dark Hour ends and _not_ cry himself to sleep.

The morning after his third practice session, which went just as badly as the first two, there’s a knock on what Ken might as well call his door, since he’s here often enough. It doesn’t really register until the knocker calls, “Breakfast’s ready.”

“Shinjiro-san?” Of his three seniors, Shinjiro-san is the one Ken’s talked to the least. He doesn’t _seem_ any less understanding than the other two, but he’s definitely the least approachable.

“Come on, kid. You like omelettes, right?”

He does, and that gives Ken the motivation to drag himself out of bed. The food smells delicious, and the fried rice is nearly as good as his mother’s, and that almost chokes him up to the point where he can’t eat (and he can’t help a spiteful thought of _there, sensei, I feel something other than numb or angry, are you happy now?_ ). Shinjiro-san doesn’t seem bothered by his slow eating, though, and it’s not like he’s in any hurry to go back to the elementary dorm.

“Thank you for the food,” Ken says, when he finally manages to clear his plate.

“Figured you might as well get one good thing outta these weekends.”

“Still, you didn’t have to go to this much trouble just for me, especially after last night.” On one of the few attempts he’d actually managed to summon Orion, he’d bulldozed Shinjiro-san instead of the target Shadow, very nearly knocking him out.

Shinjiro-san shrugs. “I’ll make Aki and Mitsuru’s later. Besides, I wanted to talk to you about that.”

Ken can’t help sinking in his seat, for once wishing he could disappear under the table before trouble hits. They’ve decided he’s too much trouble after all, haven’t they, and sent the scary one to kick him out? “I’m sorry, I know I’m not any good at this—”

“Kid, how do you think we _got_ good? Of the three of us, Aki’s the only one who didn’t have any trouble starting out, and that’s because it’s another way for him to punch his problems until they stop being problems. Mitsuru’s been doin’ this literally almost your entire life, and I had to work at it for months before I wasn’t afraid I’d hurt someone. Why d’you think we’re only taking you to Tartarus, and not out into town?”

Ken blinks. Somehow, in his own frustration, it hadn’t occurred to him that his seniors might have struggled too; all three of them seem to be naturals with their Personas. But when Shinjiro-san puts it like that…

“It sucks,” Shinjiro-san says. “And it’s gonna keep sucking. I bet it’s at least November before you really hit your stride. But you haven’t done any worse than I did, so far, so you haven’t screwed yourself out of this yet.”

There’s a challenge in there, and Ken’s not about to back down from it. “October.”

“Huh?”

“I’ll get it by October fourth, and if I do, you owe me breakfast again.”

Shinjiro-san snorts. “I’d do that anyway, but you’re on, kid. Want to go to the summer festival with us next weekend?”

“I… I don’t know if I’d be up to staying the whole time.” It has nothing to do with tiring out early; the summer festival was a day his mother always made sure to take off so they could spend it together.

“We probably won’t be either. Don’t worry about it.”

Ken’s still bone-tired when he goes back to the elementary dorm, but in a way, he feels lighter than he has since all this started.

***

A pattern is emerging.

Shinjiro joins Chidori in the back alley no more than once a week, usually less often. She’s more and more certain they’re both listening for information on Apathy Syndrome, given his tendency to drop their personal conversations in favor of listening whenever the topic comes up; if it didn’t benefit her as well, she would have questioned it much sooner.

She ought to tell Takaya and Jin there are others, but… as soon as she does, something will change. She doesn’t even know if Shinjiro has a Persona – if so, hopefully it’s not because the Kirijo Group resumed those terrible experiments – but Takaya would treat matters as though he did, and assume the worst (because he assumes that of everyone but Jin; Chidori’s not even convinced he trusts her), and it’ll all be downhill from there.

And if nothing else, Shinjiro at least understands the use of color in her drawings, even if she has yet to really show off the drawings themselves. The landscapes she gives life on her sketchbook’s pages have very little to do with anything happening in front of her. On days where bleeding it out via art isn’t enough, Shinjiro gives her bandaged wrist a pointed look, but doesn’t say anything else about it, for which Chidori’s grateful.

Maybe he understands the need to prove to yourself that you still exist, too.

She’s also found that cutting herself helps keep Medea from getting too restless. It’s ironic, really, that her only friend in the world was forced upon her by amoral scientists and wants to kill her on occasion, but she makes do. She doesn’t know how Jin copes, but Takaya’s pastime of choice, as far as she can tell, is hurting other people.

She returns to the abandoned house they’re calling their home shortly before the Dark Hour sets in. Jin stole a generator to give them a little power, and somehow the water hasn’t been turned off yet. She may have a bath, after the Dark Hour’s passed and she doesn’t have to sit in a dark, bloody bathtub.

Jin glances up from his laptop when she comes in, but doesn’t say anything until she sits down on the other end of the couch. “I’m almost finished.”

“With what?”

“The website.” Jin keeps typing for a while, then passes over the laptop long enough for Chidori to have a look. Ah, right; it’s for Takaya’s latest excuse to wave his gun at people. “I haven’t registered the domain yet, but we should be able to launch it right away, once I do.”

Chidori peers at the logo Jin made for the site, trying to make sense of the katakana. “Benjyufaa… dot ly?”

“’Vengefully.’ If you sound it out right it makes sense in English, but the spelling should still throw people off. Better than slapping our name on it, anyway.”

“I suppose so. How exactly is this supposed to work?”

“People pay up and leave their requests, we find the target during the Dark Hour and deal with them, bam. Revenge executed.”

Chidori frowns. “Won’t they be in those coffin things?”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Jin says, reaching for his laptop. “Takaya thinks he can get them out of their coffins for long enough to deal with them. If not, he’s confident his gun can shoot through those things.”

That runs the risk of Takaya shooting the wrong person entirely, but it’s not like he’d care about that. At least she doesn’t have to ask if Takaya’s home; Jin would be too busy showing him the site scheme to pay much attention to her.

She excuses herself to her bedroom before the Dark Hour can set in. If there’s one thing she can say for this run-down house, it’s that none of the walls are white.

_They don’t care about you,_ Medea whispers in the back of her mind. _They may understand where you’ve come from, but they don’t care. To them, you’re just a means to an end._

She’s right, and Chidori knows it – but where else does she have to go?

***

Akihiko comes into Shinji’s bedroom to find him swearing at the calendar, holding the page up to look at next month. Shinji swearing isn’t exactly rare, but he can’t for the life of him figure out what the poor calendar did to deserve it. “Shinji?”

Shinji sighs and stops swearing, but doesn’t look away from the calendar. “If we stick to our usual practice weekends for Ken, the next one’s the fucking fourth.”

Ah. That explains it. Ken _has_ been improving in leaps and bounds – Akihiko’s not sure what Shinji said to the kid back in August, but whatever it was, it gave him a prod in the right direction – but that doesn’t mean he’s going to want to spend the anniversary of his mother’s death fighting monsters. Or that his control wouldn’t slip on account of his grief, if they do go. There’s a real chance that would make him backslide on his progress, and that won’t help any of them.

“I’ll ask at our next practice session what he’d like to do,” Akihiko says. “No matter what happens, it needs to be his choice, and there’s no point in worrying about it until after the culture festival anyway.”

He’s pretty sure he knows what Ken’s going to want, though, and from the look on Shinji’s face when he drops the calendar and turns around, he knows it too.

The culture festival is pretty normal, as these things go. Mitsuru splits her time between the student council and fencing club tables; Akihiko can’t get away from the boxing club’s table thanks to his horde of fangirls. At least they’ve mostly stopped trying to get their hands on him directly, but he still finds them irritating – and finds himself vaguely annoyed there never seem to be any guys in the mob. Shinji’s nowhere to be seen, but that’s no surprise. He’s only in the one club, and it’s not like they can really advertise it.

Besides, their homeroom voted to do a maid cafe, and they’re hardly going to make the guys staff that.

Ken goes very still, when Akihiko tells him the date of their next Saturday practice, then tightens his grip on his spear. “I can handle it. Shinjiro-san promised me breakfast if I can control my Persona by then.”

“He’d make you breakfast anyway, you know.”

“I know, but that isn’t the point. This is for Mom.” Akihiko can’t argue with that – not when practically everything he does is for Miki – so he nods, and starts running Ken through his drills. The least he can do is make sure the kid’s ready to go on Saturday.

So naturally, Saturday is another night when they don’t even make it into Tartarus before something goes wrong. Tartarus hasn’t even finished forming when three Shadows ooze out of the door, solidifying into giant beetles that absorb everything Shinji and Akihiko can throw at them. They haven’t turned up during one of Ken’s training sessions yet, and they have the group surrounded, and Mitsuru’s still trying to get her command center situated.

Ken glares at the beetle in front of him and draws his Evoker. Orion appears behind him, blasting the beetle away in a flare of the bright not-fire Mitsuru’s classified as ‘nuclear’ magic (for lack of a better word, since there’s no actual radiation involved; she got a Geiger counter from one of the Kirijo labs just to make sure). Ken turns his attention to the next beetle, and then the last, knocking them down without quite killing them – but for some reason, Shadows that can tank one punch to the face aren’t capable of withstanding a full-team assault. Afterward, Orion hovers patiently behind Ken until he dismisses it.

By the time it’s over, Mitsuru still doesn’t have her command center up and running.

Shinji’s the first one to recover, granting Ken a brief smile. “Good job, kid.”

“Thank you.” Ken grins, looking tired but extremely satisfied. “Does this mean I can accompany you on missions in town now?”

“We’ll discuss it,” Mitsuru says. “We’re still in no shape to press further into Tartarus. My support range is limited, and we have no backup if all of you were to be injured. But this was certainly a promising start, Amada.”

***

They don’t change their schedule. It means they can’t call Ken in if something goes wrong without warning – sooner or later they’re going to have to tell Ikutsuki, if only so he can do his damn job for once and figure out how to justify moving a grade-schooler into one of the high-school dorms – but it’s easier to get their regular practice in on a routine basis, when there’s not much else they can do.

Shinji’s gotta admit, the kid’s a powerhouse now that he knows what he’s doing. He still doesn’t like having a ten-year-old on the team, but if they can’t have Mitsuru up in the tower with them, Ken’s a decent third person to have around. All of them are starting to feel the strain of not being sure they can take on that first barrier boss, though (on the other hand, at least that means Aki’s bitching about it is less annoying).

He starts writing down the stuff the back alley punks have to say about Apathy Syndrome on his calendar when he gets home. He _knows_ there’s a pattern to it, but he can’t figure out how the pieces fit together; writing it down is sheer desperation on his part, the only way he can think of to maybe see the pattern for what it is.

Sooner or later Aki and Mitsuru are going to ask what he’s doing with his evenings. Shinji doesn’t mind that, except for where he’s still not sure how to explain Chidori, and positive asking her outright what she’s up to will break what fragile trust they’ve managed to build up. He has no idea if she has a Persona. He has no idea how she would’ve _gotten_ one, if she does. He has no idea what’s up with her soulmates, other than brief mentions that suggest they’re a pretty useless pair of guys. If she’s in trouble he wants to help, but it’s going to have to be on her terms or not at all.

Between Ken’s success and Christmas Eve, there are three spikes in Apathy Syndrome cases, and three nights where Mitsuru catches wind of a Shadow causing trouble from the relative safety of the dorm’s command room, which is a hell of a feat for her. Ken’s with them for the last one, at least, since the next night was going to be one of their practice runs anyway.

Shinji still can’t see the fucking pattern. He puts it aside, though, in favor of a puzzle he _can_ solve: Christmas Eve. It’s the middle of the week, which means they won’t have to try to figure shit out around Ken. Mitsuru’s probably going to come up with some kind of elaborate presents for them both again (though really, he’s not sure she can top his coat from last year); Aki, the cheesy bastard, has already said he wants to drag Shinji out to find something for Mitsuru to put in the music box he got her last year.

Like she doesn’t already have a shitton of jewelry, but whatever. It means Shinji can combine that trip with shopping for dinner ingredients.

He goes for a full pasta and salad bar, ranging from Italian sauces to Thai and Japanese, and a cake that’s honestly too big for the three of them – but fuck it, this is his Christmas present. What good is it if they don’t have leftovers? Mitsuru smiles as she puts on the necklace Aki got her, and presents them both with new goddamn phones (Shinji would argue, they really don’t need new phones yet, but there’s no stopping Mitsuru when she gets extravagant like this).

Even he’s not blind to the way Mitsuru’s leaning on Aki, by the end of the evening, so Shinji waves them on upstairs with instructions to text him when they’re done. Aki agrees easily enough, but Mitsuru frowns.

“Are you sure, Shinjiro?”

“Positive. You two go have fun and I’ll clean up the kitchen.” It probably says something that washing dishes sounds… not necessarily more fun than sex, but definitely like a better use of his evening. What says more, though, is that Mitsuru doesn’t protest any further; she just smiles, and drags Aki upstairs. It’s nice, having people who understand.

When Aki finally sends the all-clear, the Dark Hour’s nearly on them and Shinji’s got the kitchen spotless, leftovers packed up for easy lunches over the next few days. He stops by his room for a change of clothes before heading up to Mitsuru’s; it’s hard to tell when there’s not much moonlight to go by, but he thinks they took the time to clean up the mess first (neither of them have bothered with clothes, but that’s fine). He pulls off his shirt before joining them in bed, glad they’re in one of Apathy Syndrome’s lulls – granted, even if they weren’t it’s unlikely Mitsuru would pick up on any Shadows without actively scanning for them, but still.

He’s just settled into the bed when the dots finally connect. “Fuck.”

“No, Shinji, you skipped that part, remember?”

The only thing stopping him from slugging Aki in the shoulder is that Mitsuru’s between them, and wouldn’t hesitate to throw them both out for the night for it. “Not that, asshole. The Apathy Syndrome spikes. I think they’re coming and going with the full moon.”

“…You may be right,” Mitsuru says, and Shinji can hear her frowning. “The last rogue Shadow I identified was definitely on the full moon, and things have tapered off since then.”

“I was kinda hoping you’d say I was wrong.”

“We can’t do anything to check it tonight anyway,” Aki says. “It does give us something to plan with, in the coming months, but let’s just let it be for tonight.”

They do, but none of them get to sleep until after the Dark Hour’s over.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not done with this story yet by any means, but the stuff that's going to directly parallel canon (such as it still is) feels like it deserves its own fic. Stay tuned for the next segment!


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